


grab my hand (i'm drowning)

by greenaway_lewis



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Spencer Reid, Body Image, Depressed Spencer Reid, Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, One Shot, POV Second Person, References to Drugs, References to overdosing, Sad Spencer Reid, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Loathing, Suicidal Thoughts, body image issues, briefly, i rambled through half of this sorry, its kind of sad, oh lauren references, spoilers for revalations zugswane nelson's sparrow and some other eps, spoilers up to season 12ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenaway_lewis/pseuds/greenaway_lewis
Summary: "Make coffee. You can’t drown your sorrows in alcohol because it’ll never be enough for you, you’ll want actual drugs, but you cannot have them. You settle for another drug, caffeine, but this one is socially acceptable. It’s a fun little addiction we all share, it’s safe to have this addiction. You will not lose everything because of it. There is no caffeine anonymous, but maybe you would go to it if such a thing existed. What’s one more support group? Maybe then you’d sleep at night."~or a oneshot where spencer gets conformation that the team knew about his drug problem
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid, Luke Alvez & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Comments: 10
Kudos: 84





	grab my hand (i'm drowning)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first fic so please be kind, i'd love to get some feedback though.  
> tw for past drug abuse, mild suicidal thoughts, gun violence, and death 
> 
> "Say your there when i feel helpless,  
> if that true, why don't you help me?  
> it's my fault i know im selfish"  
> -Trauma by NF, as is the title

It’s another cold November day where you wish you could stay in bed forever, wrapped up in blankets as soft as the pure snow on the tips of mountains. They’re soft against your skin, a contrast between the harshness of your life. 

You battle the two sides of you, one who says, _stay here my love, you deserve a break from the cruelty of the universe,_ she sounds like your mother but you cannot be sure. It’s been so long since you’ve spoken, you feel guilty about what you’ve done to and for her, a never ending sequence of guilt, you feel guilty for sending her away so you do not visit her, and then there’s the shame of not visiting her. You think you cannot win and maybe that’s true for more than one thing. 

The more sensible part of your brain, the one for which you are prized for, the one for which your worth comes from, tells you, _you do not deserve a break from the horrors of the world. You’ve chosen this path and you must continue, leave your bed coward. Save the day. If not, why be here at all?_ You wish you knew which voice was the angel or devil.

You leave the safety of your bed, the cycle begins once more. Wake up, contemplate your existence, get dressed, it doesn’t matter what you wear their opinions of you are cemented, just because studies show that clothing that reflects you, improves your self-esteem does not mean that that is for you. Take a shower, don’t look at yourself too closely you will not like what you see, your arms are riddled with track marks from when you were too weak to resist the temptation of pure bliss. It’s been ten years now. You thought they would be gone by now but just like the urge in the back of your head that tells you that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to start again, the marks stare back at you. They taunt you, reminders of your failures back when you were not so strong. _Are you still strong?_ Have you ever been or was it only an illusion of strength told to you by your friends in order to rid themselves of the guilt for never being able to save you. 

Brush your teeth, brush your hair. 

You change your hair as a demonstration of control. To tell yourself “hey look! I am capable of change. It does not bother me,” It does not work, your world still comes crashing down every time someone else leaves. But if your hair changes maybe you can too. Maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Make coffee. You can’t drown your sorrows in alcohol because it’ll never be enough for you, you’ll want actual drugs, but you cannot have them. You settle for another drug, caffeine, but this one is socially acceptable. It’s a fun little addiction we all share, it’s safe to have this addiction. You will not lose everything because of it. There is no caffeine anonymous, but maybe you would go to it if such a thing existed. What’s one more support group? Maybe then you’d sleep at night. 

Feed your fish, you’ve decided not to name them. Less disappointing when they die, and they will but for now they are a nice sense of companionship. 

Grab your badge, do not think about Blake and her leaving, leaving you and leaving her badge. You don’t resent her. You hope, at least, you don’t resent her.

Grab your gun, do not think about the people who’ve died at the other end of this gun. 

Make sure you have your wallet, and your phone. Leave the house do not think about staying in because if you do, you will not leave. If you do not leave your house you will think about Maeve. Do not think about Maeve and her kind eyes that you saw only once and how that was both enough for a lifetime and barely anything at all and you wish she were here, but she’s dead, just like Gideon. Do not think about Gideon.

~~~~

You make your way down the tunnel for the train. You no longer know if you ride the train for the company, the economic benefits, the environmental benefits, or because driving makes you feel like you’re 16 again and you do not want to think about Ethan right now. You wonder how he is and if he still thinks about you. You think about alternate realities where you are together and happy. Maybe you’d be married and without a drug problem and more trauma than a therapist knows what to do with but you can’t keep wishing on stars for they always burn out. They burn too fast, too hot, and then they explode. You suppose you could make a connection but you do not think you deserve to be compared with the stars. You’re thinking about Ethan now and you do not want to so you observe the passerby’s.

You see a man who reminds you of yourself all those years ago and you wonder if you should reach out. You would have cried if that had happened to you, someone noticing you at your worst and deciding you were worth every heartache just for you to be safe. You can’t reach out though because you are too broken to help yourself let alone a stranger. 

You enter the bullpen, _home sweet home_ you think, although you think perhaps home should be filled with joy and love not pictures of dismembered body’s. Who are you to define a home though, you’ve never had one. You’ve always longed to belong but the world decided that that would be too sweet, too kind for a boy like him. Boys like him do not deserve good things as his father, and the kids at school loved, oh so much to remind him. 

Emily is in her office, you wonder if she has forgiven you yet for attacking her back when you came to work high every day. You think she has, for she is far too kind to you to be holding that grudge, however she is cia and she knows how to lie to gain trust. And as remarkable as it would be to have that you know you are not worthy of it. Tara is at her desk, she is brilliant just like you but she is far more admirable than you. You wonder how she thinks of you. She does not know your sins. 

_Not a sinner, please I’m not a sinner. Am I a sinner?_

The newbies, as Garcia calls them do not know about you although you can never be sure what people know and do not know about you. Sometimes you think you should ask but the fear of truly knowing what they know is far worse than the limbo you are in now. 

Your paperwork pile is shrinking when it is time for another briefing. It is time to learn about the sins of others instead of dwelling on your own. 

Men in their thirties are dying after a drug overdose. They had been beaten before, and they were missing their eyes. You wonder if you would be better off not seeing anything anymore. It is far too painful to never forget a single thing you see and you wish others would remember that. You see yourself in these men except they were poor blue collar workers and your hands have never done manual labor. “ _Weak_ ” your father’s voice says in your brain. It’s been so long since the last time the two of you had contact, meaningful contact at least, but for some reason he is a part of you in ways he would love. 

In thirty the wheels go up to Oregon or Washington or some state where people are being murdered. You know you should care, but in the grand scheme of things it will not be the last case you work here. 

You and JJ are to interview the families. The coroner does not know if they were junkies just like you so you try to find out from grieving families if their dead were criminals. They’ve already been punished for their misdeeds but that does not matter. Your partner asks, the parents respond: no, but I can’t be sure. Then your friend says that it’s very, very hard to miss an opioid addiction and you wonder there, in the cold, unforgiving wooden room with tacky police propaganda, if your friends had seen your problem. Had they seen it and chosen not to do anything? Did you mean that little to them? The conversation flickers out of your mind, it sounds almost like sound bleeding out from the thin walls from a cheap motel. Not unlike when your neighbors play their sitcoms on volumes far too loud for your taste. Everything these days is too loud for you though. Your button-up shirt feels itchier than it should. Skin is on fire.

_“It’s the devil trying to leave your body boy”_

You want to excuse yourself but then the questions will come and you’re not sure if this is the time or place for your silly outbursts that do not matter to your teammates. 

“Spencer”

Her voice breaks through the muddy water that is your thoughts, her tone suggests that it is not the first time she’s spoken your name and you wonder how long until the badgering begins. You give her a weak smile that you’re sure she doesn’t buy for a second but, she is not shopping right now. You continue the interview, most suspected a drug problem, but there was no intervention. You feel yourself getting angry on the corpses’ behalf. It is similar to the Owen Savage case and you wonder how that would have turned out different if he had shot you. No, don’t think about this again. 

The case is a blur to you. Your colleagues solve the case fast enough to save the last victim. Shame he’ll never fully recover. The doctors say he will but you know better. Unfortunately for you the case did not go fast enough to avoid your thoughts. Every time one of your colleagues suggested that a drug problem is very difficult to hide, you wonder why they care so much for these strangers and so little for you. You suppose it might be due to the fact that they’ve met you and they did not like you. They claim that they do but you see their faces when you talk. Maybe excluding Luke, he seems to care about you but you do not know why. Why someone so good, and pure, and kind, and sweet and brave would ever consider adding you to his inner circle. Some day you’ll ask him but until then you’ll soak it in like a sponge who has been dry for years. You may not have loads of experience with healthy friendships but you do know that you always give them your full attention when they talk about anything. You wonder why you aren’t good enough to be repaid with that same kindness. 

_“How did these families not notice anything,”_

You walk back to the jet, your feet feel heavy but you know it’s psychosomatic, just like the headaches from your past. Don’t think about Maeve. 

_“It’s kind of hard to miss someone you care being high off their ass on a regular basis,”_

Someone you care about. Do they not care? How could they care you never let them in? Why don’t they want to be let in? They would never speak to you again if they knew the horrors in the innermost parts of your brain. Those are just for you, they like to visit at night just remind you that you’ll never be safe. Not from Tobias Hankel, not from Benjamin Cyrus, not from Cat Adams and most certainly not from yourself. 

_“Drug addicts are never as smart as they think they are”_

When your intelligence is all that has every mattered to others, what does that leave you with? If you are never as smart as you think you are then who even are you?

Weak. Nerd. Coward. Junkie. 

(Pretty boy, boy genius, Spence, filter in but you know that the people who call you these sweet names could never have cared about you if they watched your soul bleed from the puncture marks in your arms and did nothing.)

The jet has an energy that is hard to describe. You all see the horrors of mankind on the way there and the way back is either filled with a sense of muted pride or a horrible, sickly feeling of failure. Pride is the feeling today, for your colleagues won today. No more casualties, they saved the last victim. All wrapped up in a nice neat bow. 

You sit by yourself in a window seat. Once upon a time you would have pulled a book out to pull yourself into a story where the protagonist always wins, or some obscure nonfiction text which you will pull out for a case and hope that maybe this time they will let you talk about it after all is said and done. You do not mind when they cut of your mini lectures when working a case. You do not matter more than the people’s lives you are trying to save. But when there is no pressing deadline and still, they do not wish to hear, is when it hurts some part of you that wish you had covered in concrete. Why is your knowledge only acceptable when it is useful? Is it not enough to simply be?

You miss the way JJ’s eyes linger on you with a sad expression, otherwise you would prepare yourself for a chat. She is not the only one, Luke and Rossi also look at you but they are different for they do not know your sins, at least you hope they don’t.

Your colleague slides herself into the seat across from you. She does not wait for an invitation. 

“Spence,” her voice sounds so kind but you know better than to trust it for she used it too, while lying about your friend’s death like it was a small lie she tells her son. 

“Are you okay? I know this case hit you hard,” 

She thinks this case hit you hard because the victims and you are one and the same but doesn’t realize that it’s her that makes you want to scream. You weigh your options, tell her why you wish you could join the men from this case or continue to hear your thoughts bounce around your head like a game where you cannot win.

“JJ I’m okay,” 

You chose the option that harms you because you know you deserve it.

“Spencer, you aren’t fine, we can all see that. You were barely paying attention the entire case, you sat there lifeless until someone asked you a question. I know you relate to these victims, but you have to reach out, or we can’t help you,” 

The voices come back, _tell_ _her_ , the angel says. _you don’t deserve the cathartic release of sharing,_ replies the devil. The angel and devil are more clear today. The angel wins just this once. 

You ask her, “did you know?” 

She does not understand and she tells you that.

You try again, “did you know when I was using?”

She looks away like she can’t stand to look at you anymore, you fear that maybe you were wrong, she did not know and now you’ve told her and she knows now and she’s disgusted with you be-

“Yes” 

It’s almost a whisper which is such a contrast to the screaming in your head you almost miss it but you don’t. She knew. Which means they all knew. 

“You, knew?”

“Yes Spencer, we um, we all did”

“Then why Jennifer, did you all choose to let me drown in my own poison?” Your voice is rising just like the doses you were giving yourself back then. The rest of the jet is looking at you now, some are curious because Dr. Spencer Reid does not raise his voice, he’s too quiet and nerdy and foolish for that. He does not draw attention to himself, and they want to see why he's chosen to do so know. They want to peer at you like an animal in a zoo but you do not care anymore because maybe now you can have answers you’ve wanted for 10 years now.

“Spence,” she uses your nickname like she thinks it will help defuse the situation. You cannot put tape over a stab wound and expect the blood to cease to flow.

“We couldn’t risk it. If we helped you then Hotch would’ve had to make an official report and you would have lost your job. You know they don’t allow addicts in the fbi. We wanted to help you, please you have to understand, but we couldn’t,” 

You can’t help but think about the last time she told you she _couldn’t_. Incidentally it was a time you considered returning to the sweet poison in its little glass vials. You didn’t because you knew Emily would be disappointed in you and well, you always were a people pleaser. Except now, you don’t want to please Jennifer, you want her to hurt like she hurt you.

“Why was my job more important to you than my life?” You are almost yelling now. 

“It wasn’t,”

“Oh but it was to you, you would have rather seen me overdose in the bathroom and had my mind for a few more weeks, then help me breathe again without the drugs and not have the job that gave me this addiction,” 

You are no longer yelling, your voice is low and dangerous because begging is for cowards and you feel more in control if they have too strain to listen. _Now_ they listen. 

“That wouldn’t have happened. We kept an eye on you,”

“And what good did that do? Please tell me how letting me think every night that my colleagues, my supposed friends, didn’t care enough about me drowning, how I would stare at my ceiling and wonder if you would even come to my funeral if I ended everything right there was helpful. Was it meant to help me or was it meant to make you feel like a good person? I was never really a part of this team was I?”

“Spencer, you are the heart and soul of this team. We love you,” it’s Emily this time and you think it’s almost worse to have your colleague turned friend turned boss tell you that it does not matter that no one noticed you working while high on Dilaudid.

“Well then, this team must be dying, it must be rotten and black on the inside because my soul hasn’t been pure since I was young.” 

You look out the window and wonder if the plane crashed, would you care? You hope it would be a swift death as you always have been a coward but perhaps you deserve an antagonizing death.

“Hey,” Luke slides into the seat that JJ once occupied, you can’t remember when she left which is ironic for a genius with an eidetic memory.

You look back at him, you don’t have anything to say to the kind man in front of you who now knows one of your sins. You knew this day would come where he realizes he is too good for you but it hurts just the same.

“I, uh, you know this doesn’t change anything? Right? I’m sorry they didn’t help you, that was wrong of them. But you have to know that we love you,” 

You wish you could cry but you are holding on by a thread.

“Why?” It’s barely a whisper and it cracks on the way out, just like you. 

“Why what? Why do I love you? Why do I love the kind and selfless man in front of me who never forgets anything but especially the things that matter? Who would do anything for this team, or a stranger for that matter? You matter to us, you matter to me and I’m sorry that you don’t know that. You should. You’ve been through hell my friend, and you have steel and you should be proud. I’m proud,” 

You can’t remember the last time someone told you they were proud of you. You think back to when Gideon told you that, but you were naive then with your first kill and now he’s dead after too much baggage. 

“Thank you,” your voice still does not rise from the quiet, but you think now for the first time in so long that perhaps there is good in you and while it’s a shame that someone had to tell you that, it’s a step in the right direction. 

Luke leaves you alone but it doesn’t feel malicious for once, it feels kind. The plane lands eventually and you go back home. You wish you felt lighter, like a weight was lifted from your shoulder but you do not get that. Maybe the weight of “did they know” was lifted but it was replaced by “why was I not good enough to care about” and you think maybe that’s not better. But at least now you know the truth and that’s more than you can say about most things in your life. You lock the door behind you so no unsub can get in, you’ve learned from Randall Garner and George Foyet that that lock might not keep you safe but it keeps you sane. You put your badge on the table and do not think about Blake but wonder if you too someday would quit the bureau to teach. You put on your flannel pajamas and you take a good look at your arms. They are the source of your mental anguish most days and maybe that’s Tobias’ fault, but it’s more yours and you know that. You think one day they won’t be ugly to you, they will just be you. You brush your teeth and wash your face. You write your mother a letter, you lie to her of course because you do not want her to worry, she does not deserve that. You get into bed with your blankets that are softer than clouds look on a nice day. The voices are back, they always come back, but this time they seem almost kind. The angel is not Diana this time, it might be Luke. Oh, how sweet it is to feel appreciated by someone who deserves only golden things. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Add me in tumble @greenaway-lewis if you’d like! <3


End file.
